It’s no secret that starting a business is hard. Behind every successful entrepreneur is hours upon hours of hard work. There are many reasons why some people fail to create their dream: life events, lack of startup capital, failing to understand the market they’re entering.
But after you do all the research and planning it takes to launch your new business idea, where do you go from there? The easiest way to establish yourself with a competitive edge in this ever-changing world is by choosing a business model that makes starting your enterprise a breeze.
Here then are 10 online businesses that are easy to start, don't take a ton of money to get you going and can also be great fun to do.
A survey site gives you a dedicated platform to both ask and answer questions on current events, products, and just about any other subject matter you can think of. It's really simple to get going with surveys; you can begin the process of setting one up in less than an hour. However, the key to making money with surveys is participating in as many as you possibly can.
Here are some sites you can join to get you started:
Swagbucks
Survey Junkie
Opinion Outpost
InboxDollars
SurveyPolice
Fiverr is designed for people with professional skills who need a quick and easy way to get the word out about their talents. But, it's worth looking through it to see what people are listing on there. It is easy to create gigs on Fiverr and sell your skills, but you must know what you're doing. You'll need some creativity for this and a little experience with the skills you are selling but it's a great entry point, especially if you're a bit creative and want to sell your writing or artwork.
This is an expansion of the idea of setting up gigs on Fiverr. Some people hire a virtual assistant to help them with their everyday tasks. In return, they are given payment for their time and effort. This is usually for digital work and can be anything from video creation/editing to bookkeeping, answering emails or customer service. Typically, virtual assistants are paid a retainer or monthly fee for their work (unlike Fiverr where you're paid by the project).
If you want to find out more, take a look at Timeetc: https://web.timeetc.co.uk/virtual-assistant/freelance-with-us
OK so this one might not be so “easy” as it is “fun and free”, but with enough dedication and time spent learning how this web 2.0 platform works, you can start making money with YouTube—and who doesn’t want that?
There is a lot to learn about running a YouTube channel but you can make some money, if you do the right things, just by releasing videos in the right niche. That topic, however, is for a much larger more in-depth tutorial and whole courses have been released on how to make this work for you.
Do you have a knack for writing? If so, freelancing may be the easiest way for you to make an online income. There are so many freelance writing jobs on the web that it’s easy to find your niche and start building a loyal following.
Or, if you prefer to write fiction, start to submit your stories to online magazines. Many of them don't pay straight away but you can get up to $0.02 per word in some places and, with a 10,000-word story, that's a few hundred bucks a time.
To complement your freelance writing, you can start a blog as well. Blogging allows you to post your opinion on a variety of subjects, build loyal followers, and even provide free advice that may help others in similar situations as yourself.
To make money from your blog, you need to get the audience to click on your ads or sign up for a paid subscription (see Affiliate Marketing below). Bloggers are now seeing more and more ads on their sites, and that's because it works. This is a great entry-level strategy for an online business, but it does take a lot of time and work to make it work for you.
This is another opportunity where your knowledge base can come in handy. Now it’s not required that you be a certified tutor, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to have something of the sort on your resume or website to let potential clients know what they’re getting into.
To get started, why not look at MyTutor: https://www.mytutor.co.uk/tutors/apply/
Affiliate marketing allows you to promote products without selling them directly for profit. By sharing your knowledge about a particular product or service online, you can earn a commission from sales that result from your efforts.
The best way to become an affiliate is by reviewing products and linking them in your blog posts/videos. Another way to make money from affiliate marketing is by hosting a webinar or live talk show.
Much of the online marketing you'll see actually ends up being affiliate marketing and there's good money to be made from it when you get it right.
This is one of the most popular ways to make money online. Many people have been successful with this method and it's not hard to understand why it's so popular. You can create your own product, work on it at your own pace, and then sell it online.
You can also choose to sell digital products with little effort, or you can start a service like TutorVista, Udemy or Gumroad where people can pay for access to your digital products at your leisure.
You can make money from selling t-shirts, mugs and physical products. You can make your own customised merchandise with platforms such as Merch by Amazon or SpreadShop.
You don't even need to have a big following to do this either, you just need an idea that people will like.
These ways aren’t necessarily “easy ways to earn tons of money online”, but they are great places to start your journey. They are simple internet business models where you can make an income by sharing your knowledge with others. If this is what you choose to do, search for niches that require little startup capital—this will give you the upper hand in this tech-driven world we live in.
